


Outdoor Survival 101

by PrairieDawn



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Academy Era, First Aid, Gen, McCoy's insubordination, Surviving in the woods, descriptions of injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28199700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrairieDawn/pseuds/PrairieDawn
Summary: Plebe summer is no fun when you're a thirty-year-old doctor surrounded by reckless teenagers. A crisis in the California woods leads Leonard McCoy to a lifelong friendship.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Comments: 62
Kudos: 63





	1. How not to forage for edible plants

**Author's Note:**

> So, it's probably not all that likely that Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy met as cadets in the TOSverse. But if they had crossed paths when Jim was in his final year and McCoy in his first, it might have gone something like this.

It wasn’t yet six in the morning or oh six hundred hours as he was supposed to call it now and for the rest of his ill-starred life. The sun was a sliver on the horizon. Mist swirled gray-white among the hills like cream in the coffee he hadn’t gotten. It was the third week of Leonard McCoy’s plebe summer, and never before had thirty felt so old.

The uncouth herd of teenagers that made up the rest of his squad tumbled out of the shuttle, fell into ranks and stood at attention like liquid freezing into crystals. He held his position, silly as it was. Their guide for the day, a fourth-year and cadet lieutenant like Bones would be as soon as he was no longer a plebe—graduate degrees hath their privileges—strolled to the front of their group, casually correcting Cadet Hesry’s stance.

“At ease, cadets,” he said, flashing a brilliant and oddly genuine smile. “I’m Lieutenant Jim Kirk. I’ll be your introductory survival course instructor. We’ll only be spending the day in the woods today, though there will be longer and more challenging excursions ahead, so pay attention. The skills you will be practicing today have saved my life on more than one occasion, and they could very well save yours.” Hyperbole, Leonard was certain. Kid was far enough along to have made a cadet cruise, maybe two, but he was hardly a seasoned officer. Leonard did not, however, allow his eyes to deviate from their front and center position.

Lieutenant Kirk continued, “Today you will be learning improvisation and lateral thinking. You look like toy soldiers. Everybody fall out and meet me at the outdoor classroom.”

Leonard took a seat on a log bench as far from th’Fareel and Donaldson as he could manage. The two of them jostled and chattered behind him until Kirk arrived. His quiet, but firm voice carried improbably through the small natural amphitheater. “What do you need to survive in the woods?”

Donaldson and th’Fareel kept talking. They probably hadn’t even noticed Kirk arriving. “In the back. Your names.” Kirk said a little louder. The Andorian responded immediately with, “Cadet th’Fareel, Sir.”

Donaldson mumbled, “Cadet Donaldson,” then after a pause, “Sir.”

“You two do not appear to have the self-discipline to pay attention when given liberty. At attention, both of you.” The dismissive, almost bored tone belied the steady eye he kept on the two jackasses. A few of his fellow cadets noticed and sat up straighter. “Now, I asked a question. Cadet.” He gestured to Mazdaki, who had her hand up. “Name first.”

“Cadet Mazdaki. Water. A source of food. Protection from the elements.”

“That’s a good start. How would you obtain clean water? Someone else.”

“Cadet Hesry. A river or stream.”

“If you want giardiasis,” Leonard remarked before he remembered to stop himself.

“Correct, if out of turn. Your name?”

“Cadet McCoy. _Doctor_ McCoy. And to get clean water you’ll need to filter or boil it, depending on what you have on hand. Chlorine tabs are second best, but they’ll do in a pinch.”

“Good to have you with us, Doctor McCoy. Though I hope we’ll have no need for your services today.”

“That makes two of us. Sir.”

“What’s more important, food or shelter? Raise a hand if you think it’s shelter.” Half the hands went up, including Leonard’s. “And you would be right. Person can last a long time without food. It’s not fun, but it can be done. Water’s a bit more urgent. A human will die in three days without water, maybe four. An Andorian can last about five, and a Tellarite a week, two in torpor.” He nodded acknowledgment to the two nonhumans in the squad. “And no, humans aren’t weaklings, we’re water adapted. But without shelter, a cold night or a hot day could do you in.”

“Last question. Cadet Donaldson. When you’re preparing a shelter, what would you do first?”

“Start a fire, sir.”

“If you can start a fire, you should, but it’s not the first thing you should do. You want to build a shelter that will keep wind and water off you and keep your body off the ground. If you don’t insulate underneath you, you’ll lose as much heat to the ground as to the air. Now, I’m going to demonstrate building a shelter out of materials at hand.”

Lieutenant Kirk led them a few hundred yards down the trail. “You’ll all be expected to demonstrate the technique yourselves, so watch closely.”

Leonard placed himself slightly off to the side to keep half an eye on the rest of his squad in case they got squirrelly. When any of them performed badly, they all suffered, usually in the form of extra laps or push-ups. Leonard kept himself in good shape to the extent possible with the rigors of medical school and residency, but fifty pushups on uneven ground in the woods wasn’t his idea of a good time.

Kirk gathered an impressive pile of fallen leaves and plant matter, narrating all the while with advice on plants to avoid touching and the best spots to find windblown drifts of leaves. He piled it in front of two large trees growing almost on top of each other. “These trees will make a good windbreak. Anything you can put between yourself and the ground will keep you warmer. And the warmer you are,” he turned toward them with another one of those brilliant smiles, though this one grew hard after a moment, “The longer it will take for you to starve.”

He gathered branches next and began building an A-frame over his makeshift bed. “You want your shelter to be just big enough for you to get inside. That way there’s less air for you to warm with your body heat. If you’re not alone, try to build one shelter for everyone and pack in tight to conserve warmth.”

Predictably, snickers arose from the collected plebes. “You’re laughing now,” Leonard grumbled at them. “You won’t be when it’s cuddle up or lose your toes.”

“Cadet McCoy keeps stealing my best lines,” Lieutenant Kirk said, but he was smiling when he said it, so Leonard figured he hadn’t stepped too far out of line. “All right, let’s see how many of you were paying attention. He began to pair up the cadets. Leonard waited until he heard “McCoy, th’Fareel.” He didn’t dare protest, but he couldn’t hide the slight droop in his shoulders.

He made his way over to the Andorian and waited for further instructions. Th’Fareel looked attentive, but Leonard could tell from the set of his antennae that he was woolgathering. Knowing him, he was probably trying to think of a prank he could play to make the day more exciting. _Lord, save me from clever jackasses_ , Leonard thought. Kirk directed them to their own patch of forest and gave them thirty minutes to construct a shelter. “Gather the bedding,” th’Fareel told him. “I will collect the boughs. Think you can handle that, old man?”

At least this time he was being insulted for his age and not his species. He grunted his agreement and set about looking for materials. The summer brought an abundance of vegetation, though some of it protected itself with spines or toxins. Drifts of conifer needles were the easiest to collect. He pulled off his jacket to use as a makeshift bag and managed to get a good eight inches of bedding in only a dozen trips. Th’Fareel, to his credit, was prompt in returning with the flexible, gently curved boughs they would need.

“I will build the cover. Go gather more leaves,” th’Fareel ordered.

This time Leonard shook his head. “I’m better at tying knots than you are.”

“And I’m stronger, so I should bend the boughs,” th’Fareel argued, his voice taking on the derisive tone that signaled an insult to Leonard’s species wouldn’t be far behind.

“I’m tired of you ordering me around like you outrank me, Cadet th’Fareel,” Leonard snapped, just in time for their instructor to make his presence known. How long had he been watching?

“What seems to be the trouble?” Lieutenant Kirk said cheerily.

Th’Fareel took the bait. “Cadet McCoy is wasting time because he doesn’t want to collect materials to cover the shelter.”

Leonard’s eyes rolled before he could stop them. “I’d like the shelter not to fall down on our heads because you’ve done shoddy work!” That wasn’t even fair. Th’Fareel got on his nerves with his joking around and frankly, with the easy way he got along with the other cadets in their squad, but he was competent enough.

“Gentlemen,” Kirk said. He had one of those voices that grew more commanding as it dropped in volume. “Bickering is not a productive use of your time.”

“Yes, sir,” they both said, Leonard trailing th’Fareel by a fraction of a second. He hunted smaller branches to weave into the structure th’Fareel was assembling and filled his shirt with more leaf litter. They worked in mutual grumpy silence, finishing neither first nor last.

“Try it out,” their instructor said from behind, startling Leonard so he jumped and tried to cover the gesture by half-jogging over to their pile of sticks and leaves.

He pushed down on it, not too hard. “Stays up,” he said.

“Get inside,” Kirk challenged. “See if the two of you can fit.”

Leonard ducked his head at th’Fareel. “After you.”

His partner snorted but crawled through the small opening to press himself gingerly against one side of the shelter, pulling his knees to his chest. Leonard tried to follow, but the inside of the shelter turned out to be just a little bit too small. He wasn’t going to be able to turn around without knocking out the sidewall. He backed out on his hands and knees.

“You can come out, Cadet th’Fareel.” Kirk put his hands on his hips and shook his head just a little. “All right, how would you fix it?”

“I’d start with longer boughs and put them about eight inches farther apart,” Leonard began.

Kirk cut him off. “This is a survival situation. You don’t get to do it over. How do you fix it?”

“If we pull the boughs out, the structure will fall,” Th’Fareel told Lieutenant Kirk.

“I’m not your partner. Don’t talk to me, talk to him.”

Leonard focused on the crisscrossing top of their A-frame. “Th’Fareel, if we can find more of that vine, we can tie the branches so they’ll open and close like a hinge.”

The Andorian bobbed his antennae. When the two of them left to find vines to use as twine, Lieutenant Kirk wandered off as well. By the time he returned, the two of them had managed to wedge themselves into their makeshift shelter without knocking it over. Out of curiosity, Leonard took out his medical tricorder, made a couple of adjustments, and used it to measure the temperature inside the shelter for ten minutes or so, watching it rise until a shouted “Fall in!” rescued them from their homemade prison. It collapsed on them when they crawled out of it, showering them with detritus. They returned to the outdoor classroom. At least all the other cadets were as liberally covered with the forest floor as they were.

“One of these days,” Lieutenant Kirk was saying, “I’ll show you how to start a fire the hard way. Today we’re just going to focus on getting a fire started without burning the forest down. To start a fire, you need fuel, oxygen, and a spark, but the first thing you want to do is clear a space for your fire so you don’t burn down your shelter.” He demonstrated, sweeping a patch of ground free of debris. “Your next assignment is to identify some tinder and an object on your person you could use to obtain a spark. You want to find something for tinder that has a low ignition point and is very dry.”

Leonard was allowed to carry his medkit with him at all times, though he had been required to stock it according to Starfleet specs instead of his own. He sat down and lay it open in front of him, counting a good six potential heat sources and three items he could use for tinder, though all of the tinder sources were too valuable to use when there were dust-dry leaves all around. Apparently, his idleness had been noticed. The lieutenant squatted beside him. “What have you got, cadet?”

“For tinder, I’d use dry leaves, but in a pinch, I could use a bit of hemostatic gauze, alcohol prep pads, the bandages with cloth or paper in them—not all of them will burn. For heat, I’d use the laser scalpel, but I could use the power supplies out of the dermal regenerator or the medscanner, or pull the lenses out of them if they were out of power.”

“Smart thinking on the lenses. Could you start a fire if you didn’t have your kit?”

“In theory,” Leonard admitted. “I’ve never actually gotten a fire to start with a hand drill.”

Lieutenant Kirk chuckled and moved on to the next cadet. Leonard found himself liking the man in spite of himself. He didn’t carry himself like any of the other instructors, all of whom seemed to think that appearing to be a human being would incite mutiny.

The fire lighting lesson ended with neither mutiny nor arson and they moved on to foraging. Lieutenant Kirk’s demeanor changed. It was subtle; Leonard wasn’t sure he’d have even caught it if he hadn’t done a psych residency, but the natural humor vanished as if behind a cloud, his occasional jokes felt forced, and his tolerance for error fell.

“Not sure I wouldn’t rather starve than risk the way some plant toxins can kill,” Leonard remarked to Cadet Wisch.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Kirk answered him gravely, and he shut up.

Kirk strode to the center of the outdoor classroom, held something up over his head, and said, “Who’s brought rations?”

There was a scattering of nervous laughter.

“What, no one brought anything to eat?”

Technically, Leonard had two bottles of electrolyte replacement solution, glucose tablets, and three packs of protein paste, but those were for medical emergencies and did not count.

Kirk surveyed the fidgeting plebes. “Let that be a lesson to you then. Never be without a food supply, even if it’s just a couple of protein bars in your pockets. It’s a lot easier to think your way out of a crisis when you’re not fighting low blood sugar. We’ll be heading back in time for the evening meal and none of you will die of missing lunch. I checked.”

There was groaning all around. Kirk continued. “If you can find it, identify it, and prepare it, you can eat it. Go on, see what you can find. Stay with your partners, do not stray more than one hundred meters from this spot, and do not eat anything until you’ve run it by me.”

Leonard took off after th’Fareel. So far, it had been an easy day, the gathering and building using much less energy than the usual multiple hours of physical conditioning. The weather was pleasant, just cool enough for his uniform jacket not to be a burden. For once, th’Fareel was willing to let him take the lead in identifying the local flora and occasionally fauna that was likely to be edible. He reached overhead to gather a sprig of pine, thinking of it more for demonstration than for actual drinking, when a sharp crack and a shriek, followed by a long, rumbling noise interrupted his thoughts.

He caught his partner’s eye just long enough to acknowledge what they had both heard, then sprinted for the source of the sound, his medkit banging against his leg as he ran.

Kirk beat him there by seconds. The shuffling of feet on the forest floor heralded the arrival of the other cadets, but he had eyes only for the gaping hole in the ground in front of him. A tree lay canted and uprooted across the hole, surrounded by freshly torn-up earth. He could hear the sound of rushing water below them.

“Sound off!” Kirk shouted. “Order of height.”

So that was why they’d had to learn that scheme. Leonard was third out of ten. He waited to hear Wisch, then announced, “McCoy!” But after he spoke, Hesry didn’t follow. He looked around, counting, though Kirk had clearly already done so.

The Lieutenant was on his comlink. “I need emergency beam out for cadets Hesry and Mazdaki.” There was a pause in which Kirk drummed the fingers of his free hand on his thigh. “What do you mean you can’t locate them?” A sigh, and the Lieutenant paced, listening. “I’m going after them with,” he looked around briefly, “Cadet McCoy. Call it in and get me some backup.” He snapped the link closed.

“Doctor McCoy, you’re with me. The rest of you, wait here for the rescue team.”

“Yes, sir!” someone said. 

Kirk slithered into the narrow space between the fallen tree and the edge of the sinkhole and McCoy followed. They were dangling by tree roots over a fast-moving underground river. Kirk swore. “We can’t rescue them ourselves.”

“If they’re even alive to be rescued,” Leonard said in spite of himself.

Kirk shook his head once. “HQ has life signs, they just can’t get a transporter lock. Haul out, we’ll wait for a team,” he said, but a loud, whining creak interrupted him, the tree tilted further above them, knocking free more debris, and they both tumbled into the rushing water.


	2. Just Who Is In Charge Here?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cadets Kirk and McCoy go after two cadets who have fallen into a sinkhole.

Jim slid down into the hollow left by the uprooted tree far enough to see where the cadets—his cadets—had fallen. He heard Cadet McCoy creep gingerly down behind him, and had just enough time to note the rushing of the water and the rapid flicker of light from above on the patch he could see. He had checked the maps and the most recent published assessment of this patch of Northern California forest. The river did have tributaries that took detours through caves in the area, but there had been no such tributaries within a couple of kilometers of their location, at least as of last week’s scans. 

He informed the cadet that a rescue was impossible without help and was still puzzling out the implications when the added weight of Cadet McCoy led to ominous creaking and snapping in the mesh of roots that suspended them over the stream. Before he could even shout a warning to McCoy, the cage of roots gave way all at once, plunging them into rushing water. Jim had just enough time to take a deep breath and curl into a ball with his arms wrapped protectively over his head before he hit the water. It was deep enough to slow him down a little before he hit bottom shoulder first, hard enough to make light flash behind his eyes. There was a crunching noise to accompany the fire that blossomed at the point of his scapula to spread from hip to fingertips, leaving numbness and burning in its wake. He kicked off and broke the surface in total darkness, carried along by the current in water less than a meter deep so that his attention was entirely focused on protecting his head and limbs from striking the streambed.

The stream grew wider and shallower, enough that he could keep his feet. He shouted. “McCoy! Hesry! Mazdaki!”

“McCoy here!” the cadet’s voice carried over the echoes of water pouring over stones. “Keep coming this way. There’s a bank on this side.”

Jim waded cautiously toward the voice. “Are you hurt?”

“Scrapes and bruises, nothing serious. Keep coming.”

He went to his hand and knees once the water level dropped enough, the better to navigate the rocks and debris without his sight. An arm bumped the top of his head, readjusted, and pulled him up by his jacket, wrenching a howl out of him when it jostled the bad shoulder. Cadet McCoy immediately began patting him down. “Whoa, what are you doing?” he protested.

“Checking to see if you’re hurt,” the young doctor replied briskly.

Jim swallowed. “I’m not, so you can just keep your hands to yourself, Cadet.”

Even in total darkness, the disbelief in Cadet McCoy’s tone came through. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

Jim sat so his body pressed firmly next to the cadet’s, not wanting to lose him in the dark, then unsealed and fished through his pockets until he found his flashlight. Flicked on and turned to wide beam, it bathed a wedge of the cave in diffuse gray light. He thumbed the red filter into place to protect their night vision and the wedge turned ruddy.

“Dammit!” Cadet McCoy said beside him.

“What?”

“My medkit. I didn’t keep hold of it when I went in the water.”

“What’s in your pockets?”

“Datapad in the inner pocket, but it got smashed.” Jim could hear him fishing around. “Utility knife. Firelighters. That’s about it. Give me the light, let me have a look at you.”

“I told you, Cadet, I’m fine.” He narrowed the flashlight’s beam and swept it slowly around the cavern, hoping to catch sight of Hesry or Mazdaki. The cavern looked new, its earthen walls broken into blocky chunks that still smelled more of soil than of cave. Tangled roots trailed in the water. “We need to get moving. Your squad has missing members.”

Cadet McCoy rose without further comment and followed him along the narrow strip of muddy ground between the swollen stream and the cavern wall. Jim tried to keep his movements natural, despite whatever he’d done to his shoulder and at least a couple of ribs on that side. He swept the area ahead of them again. 

“You’re not left-handed,” McCoy noted.

“I thought I might have seen something up ahead,” he said, gesturing with the hand holding the flashlight. “Hesry! Mazdaki! Sound off!”

“You’re not left-handed and you’re guarding your right side. How bad is it?”

Jim was about to tell him to let it go when he heard an indistinct voice over the splashing of the water. He held up a hand and pointed in the probable direction. “Sound off, Cadet!” he shouted again. The effort sent fresh pain shooting from his underarm to his bellybutton. There it was again, indistinct, but feminine in pitch. He shouted back again, roughly. “Mazdaki! Stay put. We’ll come to you!”

He led the way, sweeping the light ahead of them. Turning a corner, the bank on their side abruptly vanished, though he could see a tumble of large boulders on the other side of the stream. “How long is that light rated for?” McCoy said from just behind him.

“You should know that,” Jim challenged. 

“Five hundred hours, Sir,” the cadet replied. “If it started with a full charge.”

“Which it did.”

A wolf whistle drew his eye to the outline of a figure perched on a lumpy boulder at the water’s edge. Mazdaki waved her arm. “How deep is the water?” Jim shouted, then covered the sudden, painful urge to cough by clearing his throat roughly. He felt Cadet McCoy grip his right arm firmly.

“Not sure!” she shouted back. “Hesry’s hurt bad!”

McCoy released Jim’s arm and took a step toward the water. “Hold on, Cadet,” Jim said firmly.

“You heard her, Hesry’s hurt.”

“And we are going to get to him. But we’ll do him no good if we’re swept downstream.” He frowned into the dark water. “I should have brought rope.”

“Well, you didn’t, no use cryin’ about it now. I ought to have a look at you before we try to cross,” McCoy insisted.

“I told you, I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You have a medscanner on you, now?”

“I do, they’re called eyes and ears.” The medical cadet kicked at the pebbled ground. “Look, you let me check you out or I’m just gonna walk right into that water to get to someone who might really need me.”

“You’re kind of insubordinate, you know that?”

“Technically I’m not. I’m a doctor, you’re not a doctor. And you’re injured, don’t bother to lie to me, it’s obvious.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Maybe. Adrenaline will mask how serious an injury is. Don’t they teach you that in command school?” And then there were hands on his back, quickly and expertly probing each side of his spine, then deftly down his right collarbone. He suppressed a flinch and cry, but still shuddered as those hands traced lightly over his scapula, down his right arm, then framed his side, pressing lightly on both sides and working down from the armpit. He managed to hold still, but couldn’t stifle a grunt. “Front or back?” McCoy asked.

“Back. It’s not that bad,” Jim protested.

“You’ve got a broken clavicle and scapula along with at least a couple of ribs on the right side,” he said, while his hands continued working their way down to the top of his hipbone. “That shoulder needs to be immobilized. You’re lucky it hasn’t dislocated already.”

He heard rather than saw the cadet drop his jacket, pull off his shirt, then shrug back into the jacket. Fabric was pulled over his head and then down to his neck. The cadet walked around to the front. “Gonna hurt more before it hurts less,” he warned, then tugged at Jim’s arm and back until the fabric was holding his arm tightly to his chest while Jim tried hard not to betray himself by yelling. “This will do. Wait here.”

“What do you mean, wait here? I am still in charge.”

“You just keep telling yourself that, Sir.” Cadet McCoy left him on the shore to wade into the water, nearly disappearing into the gloom. Jim kept his flashlight turned toward him. To the doctor’s credit, he moved excruciatingly slowly, planting one foot, wriggling it to test the stability of the streambed at that point, and slowly shifting his weight. It took him several minutes to cross. The water never rose above his knees.

Once across, McCoy scrambled over to Cadet Mazdaki and knelt in front of a shadowy lump Jim had mistaken for another rock. Jim trained the light on him and moved to follow him across the shallow water. McCoy looked up. “Stay where you are, sir,” he shouted, then gestured to Mazdaki.

The young woman picked her way across the water more quickly and less carefully than McCoy had, with the result that she stumbled and soaked herself halfway across. She splashed her way to Jim’s side. “Lean on me,” she said. “Sir.”

“Nothing wrong with my legs,” he told her and started across, keeping his stance wide and his knees bent to absorb the current. His inability to use his right arm for balance caused him to nearly fall, but Mazdaki was right at his side, taking a knee so he could grab onto her shoulders with his good arm. She deftly relieved him of the flashlight at the same time but handed it back as soon as it was no longer in danger of slipping from his fingers into the water.

McCoy, who was naked from the waist up, his jacket twisted into an impromptu brace for Hesry’s head and neck, looked up from his patient. “I could use that light over here,” he said brusquely.

Jim aimed the diffuse beam onto the two of them. “Report, Cadet.”

“It’s Doctor,” McCoy corrected. “Cadet Hesry hit the water a lot harder than the rest of us. I suspect a spinal cord injury, but without my instruments, I can’t be sure.”

“I can’t feel my legs,” Hesry mumbled.

McCoy’s tone shifted into a comforting murmur. “I know, Faunir. We’re gonna get you out of here and fix you right up.” He strode over, snatched the flashlight from Jim’s hands and aimed it into the Tellarite’s eyes, then used it to examine his head and body. “What’s important right now is you stay as you can until help gets here. Mazdaki, can you find something else to brace him?”

“Aye,” she said, scouting around while staying in range of the faint circle of light. She stuffed something soft and damp around the small of Hesry’s back, packing it in tightly to keep him from rolling.

“Stay with him. I’m going to have a better look at our fearless leader,” McCoy continued, then stepped around Hesry to stand near Jim, close enough that their conversation wouldn’t carry. “Where do you have pain?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” Jim answered irritably. He was tired, almost groggy, in spite of a more or less full night’s sleep.

“I didn’t ask you what you think you can handle. I don’t have a scanner and pain is data. Now, has anything changed since we crossed the stream?” He tucked a hand into the space below the impromptu sling and Jim’s muscles tightened in anticipation.

“Hurt to breathe?”

“Yeah,” Jim said in defeat.

The doctor bent low to press the side of his head to Jim’s back. “Breathe for me. Not too deep.”

Jim complied. McCoy moved his head around to the opposite side. “And again.” He gingerly led Jim to the edge of the flat bolder on which Hesry lay. “Sit down slow and easy.” Just to make matters more embarrassing, McCoy insisted on helping him sit. “Stay right here and try not to move too much. I don’t want any of those ribs to puncture your chest wall. Has the rescue team gotten back to you yet?”

Jim reached for his pocket with his good hand. McCoy stopped him. “What part of don’t move did you not understand?” He reached into Jim’s pocket and pulled out the comlink in several pieces.

Jim swallowed. “It’s fine. They’ll be here soon. Probably just working out how to get to us safely.” He tried and failed to keep his tone light. 

“Too far below ground for a beam out, I take it?” McCoy asked.

“Yeah, with this kind of rock.” He shook his head, not sure whether his queasiness was from the increasing feeling that there was something very wrong in his chest, or the knowledge that he had endangered the cadets under his command. Later. “How’s Hesry?”

“Signs of spinal cord injury T3, T4, but he’s breathing okay. Alert and oriented. All we can do is hope the rescue team gets here quickly.”

“Shouldn’t be much longer,” Jim assured him. “I’ll put in a good word for you by the way. You’ve kept your head. Mazdaki too.”

“Mazdaki has been fantastic,” McCoy agreed.

Jim drew another breath, fighting the burning in his chest and back. He’d already destroyed his career the moment he’d decided to crawl into a sinkhole with a cadet. Not being able to lead because he’d managed to get hurt was just icing on the cake. “I was going to be a starship captain,” Jim said.

McCoy was silent for a few seconds. “You’re not dying. Worst case you’ll be stuck in regen for a couple of days.” He chose that moment to shine the flashlight directly in Jim’s face and frowned.

Jim swallowed, feeling sick to his stomach at his own failure. “I let two cadets fall in a hole and then jumped in after with a third. I’ll be lucky to graduate, much less stay command track.”

McCoy was getting right into his face now, his voice dropping into that quieter register he’d used with Hesry a few minutes ago. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

“I checked the spot we were assigned. There shouldn’t have been any hazards. The topography scans were only a week old.” 

“Rained five of the last seven days,” McCoy noted.

“Yeah, I should have realized.”

“That an underground river would change course and make the ground unstable. How were you supposed to know that?”

“It’s my job to know. And none of that excuses putting you in jeopardy.”

“Remember, slow, controlled breaths.” He patted Jim on his good arm and took the flashlight away with him, presumably to check on Hesry. Sitting upright and unsupported was getting difficult, but Jim didn’t want to move and risk jamming a rib into his lung or worse, earning the insubordinate medical cadet’s wrath. Staring into the dark made him unbearably sleepy. He felt his head drop toward his chest, forced it upright.

McCoy returned to his side. “You’re slouching. Here,” he sat down beside Jim. “Lean against me if you’re getting tired.”

“I should be taking charge,” Jim said. “You’re a plebe.”

“You’re a casualty. And for what it’s worth, they’re not going to throw away all the time and effort they put into training you. Not with things as they are.”

“I’m supposed to go to the Farragut at the end of the summer, provided the Klingons haven’t blown it up.” 

“Starbase Four,” McCoy volunteered.

“Not staying at the Academy?”

“Medical personnel are being run through summer training and then straight into service. Just found out a couple days ago.” He waved a hand in lieu of shrugging. “Can’t say as I’ll miss four years of taking classes with teenagers.” His hand trailed lightly up and over Jim’s injured side and shoulder, pausing to put slight pressure just behind the joint. Jim yelped. McCoy made one of those noises Jim didn’t like hearing. He pressed again and Jim had to swallow hard against nausea. “I don’t like the feel of that. Very spongy. I think you’re bleeding into the socket. So you’re going to hate me.”

He moved so Jim’s back was to his chest and pulled him in tight, then pressed Jim’s shoulder into his sternum hard, with both hands. Jim couldn’t help but cry out and kick his legs in a vain attempt to get away. “Fuck, what are you doing!”

“Trying to slow the bleeding. You’ve got quite a hematoma getting going. Feels like you tore an artery.”

Jim tried to will himself to stop moving, but his legs kicked at the ground almost of their own accord. “That fucking hurts!”

McCoy’s voice was in his ear. “I know. In through the nose and blow it out.”

“I think I hate you.”

“Keep it up. In. And out.” He paused. “You should know that Hesry’s airway was partially compromised when I got here. If I hadn’t repositioned him and stabilized his head and neck he might not still be alive.”

“So you’re a hero,” Jim hissed through his teeth.

“I wouldn’t be down here if you hadn’t brought me with you, kid.” There was a change to the splashing noises coming from upstream. The faded edges of light cones spread out from behind the corner they’d turned to find Hesry and Mazdaki. McCoy turned his head to look. “I think the cavalry’s here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There. I fixed it.


	3. Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kirk, McCoy and the other two cadets are rescued and treated for their injuries.

Leonard breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the lights of the rescue team coming around the bend in the stream, but he did not let up the pressure on Lieutenant Kirk’s shoulder. Kirk had stopped struggling, but his breath still came short and fast, and every muscle in his torso was tensed and trembling. Leonard kept his eyes on those moving flashlight beams as if by doing so he could will them to approach faster. Kirk’s strained breaths, streaked with moans he was trying and failing to suppress made his own jaw tense in sympathy and he wished he had anything to offer him for the pain. The grinding of bone on bone where the scapula and clavicle were broken had to be excruciating, but the speed with which that hematoma was growing under his hands suggested a tear in the brachial artery where it passed close to the bone, too close to the junction of arm and shoulder for him to be sure the pressure was making a difference.

An amphibious vehicle turned the corner, floated up to the bank beside him, and disgorged four members of the rescue team, including Dr. Shrin. “That you, McCoy?” Shrin shouted.

Leonard shouted back, “Cadet Hesry, probable spinal cord injury, behind me. Cadet Madzaki is stabilizing his neck. Lieutenant Kirk, multiple fractures of the shoulder with Class I hemorrhage, possibly Class II. Suspect rupture of the brachial artery.”

Shrin was kneeling beside him by the time he finished reporting on his patients. He ran a scanner over Kirk. “Confirmed brachial artery rupture, comminuted fracture of the inferior angle of the right scapula, fractures at the acromion and clavicle, along with the seventh, eighth, and ninth ribs. Don’t move, I’ll be right back.” Shrin left Leonard’s line of sight, but he could hear the other doctor conferring quietly with Mazdaki.

“How’s Cadet Hesry?” Kirk gritted out between clenched teeth.

“Dr. Shrin’s checking him out.”

“Make sure they take him first.”

“Not my decision,” Leonard told the lieutenant. “Rescue team has command now.”

“He’s my responsibility. I should be the last one out.”

Shrin returned to crouch beside them both. He scanned Kirk a second time, presumably to judge how fast the kid was losing blood volume, and swore under his breath in Andorian. “This one goes first. We’ve got to get him on the boat and back the way you came. We’ve widened the hole to give the transporters a clear sightline.”

“I’d like to go with him,” Leonard said.

“Good plan. I think you’re only stopping about forty percent of the bleed, but forty percent is better than none. I’m sticking with Cadet Hesry in case he becomes unstable.”

“Understood.”

Two more members of the rescue team floated an antigrav gurney up alongside them. One tapped Leonard on the shoulder. “On three.”

“Lieutenant Kirk, we’re going to transfer you to a gurney. Don’t try to help, just let us move you.”

“Aye,” Kirk grunted.

As is usual for these moments, as soon as they moved Kirk everything happened very fast and very slow at once. Leonard stood, bearing Kirk’s weight on his upper body, supported from behind by someone from the rescue squad. A second squad member collected Kirk’s feet. They swung him onto the gurney and Leonard lay his head down and changed his grip on the bleeding shoulder to press it into the gurney below, then Kirk’s eyes rolled up into his head as he coded.

The paramedic beside him swore, but juggled hypos with impressive speed, pressing two in quick succession to Kirk’s throat and one directly to his sternum. “Harder!” he told Leonard, who climbed onto the gurney to get his weight over his hands. He and Kirk were maneuvered to the boat, locked into place, and the boat sped toward the spot where they’d fallen through. “Heads up, I’m shocking him.”

“Copy that,” Leonard said, bracing for the jolt. The old defibrillators would have thrown him right off the gurney and into the water, but modern ones were much more precise and transferred only a painful, but manageable shock to bodies in contact with the patient. 

“I’ve got a rhythm back,” the paramedic said. A trip that had taken him and Kirk several minutes wading ended in seconds. Leonard had just long enough to feel sunlight on his back from the enlarged hole before the transporter caught both of them up in its beam.  
*

Transport to Starfleet Medical’s trauma bay didn’t slow the frenetic pace one iota. Gurney, Kirk, and Leonard atop him were directed to an operating suite swiftly, efficiently, and a little dizzyingly for a man kneeling atop the gurney with his face pointing at the floor. “Stay right there,” someone, probably a nurse, directed him, and he stayed right there in spite of a back that was shooting pins and needles from his shoulder blades to his backside and arms that were starting to shake with fatigue.

The trauma nurse and surgeon worked around him, starting a line to push blood into Kirk’s veins, hitting him with hypos, and cutting him out of his clothes. Leonard occupied himself by noting every move the medical personnel around him made.

Hands gripped his biceps. “You can let go and step back now.”

He slid off the gurney, taking a moment to roll his shoulders and shake out his cramped fingers. Another set of hands pulled him away from Kirk to run a medscanner over him. “You injured?”

“Nothing serious,” he said. “Anything on the scan?”

“No, you’ll do. You ever seen a repair of a longitudinal tear in a major artery?”

“Not in person.”

“Shower and scrub in. Theater three in twenty minutes.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Leonard said, bolting for the showers. Getting a chance to scrub in to a difficult vascular surgery before he was shipped into range of the fighting was an opportunity he couldn’t afford to miss. He shed his filthy uniform, threw the whole wadded mess into a basket, and dove into the shower, setting it to forty-one degrees celsius and autoclean. The shower water poured over him from three different directions, turning soapy after ten seconds. He tugged a washcloth out of the dispenser and ran it over himself quickly, then scrubbed his fingers through his hair until a buzzer sounded and the water ran clear. Another minute and the water shut off. A quick burst on the sonic, accompanied by warm air ensured he was dry.

He stepped out of the shower less than five minutes after he entered the room, stepped out into the scrub room, and threw on clean scrubs that almost fit. The scrub nurse held out shoes in his size and he stepped into them, then let her set up for him to scrub his hands and run them under the rad box to disinfect them.

Twelve minutes after he’d been sent to get ready he backed through the door of the operating theater, showered, gowned, gloved, and as sterile as a living human body could get. The lead surgeon gestured with his chin. Leonard took up a position across from him, careful not to block his light. 

The schematic of Kirk’s shattered shoulder floated over his draped waist. “We’ve got the bleeding under control. Would you like to place the graft, Doctor McCoy?”

Leonard’s eyes widened at the offer. “Of course, sir.” He paused. “It will be my first.”

“First time for everything.”

The graft, taken from a vein in Kirk’s leg, would suffice to perfuse Kirk’s right arm and would provide raw materials for regenerative drugs to sculpt into an artery just like the one that had been macerated beyond repair. Leonard collected the graft from the specimen tray, set the tissue regenerator to its micro setting, and began to seal the vessel ends together in a zigzag pattern that superficially resembled suturing. “Time?” he said.

“The extremity has been without blood flow for seventeen minutes.”

Leonard took his time finishing the work. Three minutes later he collected a microinjector to apply the regeneration cocktail that would transform the vein into an artery over the next few days. “Have we checked the area for other potential bleeders?” he asked. He expected that they had, but assumed nothing and made a careful visual scan of his own. There. One of the tributaries leading toward the neck had a small tear. He sealed the tissue, then said, “If you concur I think we can remove the clamps and check to see if the vessel is patent.”

He waited for the lead surgeon’s nod, then gingerly removed the clamps, keeping his eyes fixed on the surgical site. “There we go. Pinking right up,” the surgeon said. “You do good work, young man. Neat and quick.”

“Thank you, sir. Did you leave that tear on purpose?”

“I wouldn’t have let you remove the clamp if you hadn’t seen it.”

“You better not have.”

The surgeon chuckled. “Go ahead and close him up, then see someone about that head lac.”

“What head lac?”

The lead surgeon huffed under his mask. “You didn’t look in the mirror after you showered, did you?”

He hadn’t. And if his skin was compromised, he ought to have had it repaired first before coming into the operating room. He winced at the elementary error.

“It’s all right, you’re not bleeding and the cap covered the injury. I’ve had to operate in the field when I was a heck of a lot less sterile.”

Leonard got to work closing the wound, layer by layer, aware of the eyes of the lead surgeon and scrub nurse on him and increasingly of the battering his own body had taken. Once he was done, only faint lines showed where the incisions had been made, lines that would fade within days. When he was dismissed, he changed into the spare clothes he kept in his locker and headed down to the clinic to get his forehead repaired. He’d check on Hesry and Kirk as soon as he was presentable.

*

Jim woke with a stickily dry mouth and the floaty feeling of strong painkillers slowing his thoughts. A nurse offered him a water bottle and checked his vital signs, then bustled away, leaving him alone with his thoughts. He dozed, memory returning to him in baffling fragments, while the anesthesia faded, then all at once he remembered his rookie mistake and tried to rub his face in frustration. His right arm twinged and would not rise. He turned his head to find his entire right side from his neck to the top of his hipbone immobilized.

Great. Just great. So, he’d be spending his final days in Starfleet in the hospital, recovering from an injury he wouldn’t have gotten had he followed procedure. He went through the events in his mind, from the moment he’d heard cadets Hesry and Mazdaki fall to when he saw the approaching lights of the rescue team and his memory failed him. He should have insisted on a fresh scan of the terrain before taking the cadets out. He should have kept them all closer, taught them to detect unstable ground beneath their feet before letting them walk around on their own. He should have waited for the rescue squad to arrive before climbing into a sinkhole. As soon as he finished going over it all, finding every error he’d made, he backed up and went through it all again.

There was a knock at the door, a pause, and McCoy entered his hospital room. Before he could even get a word in, Jim blurted, “Cadet Hesry?”

“Resting comfortably. He should make a full recovery, though he’s going to be on bed rest for at least a week, maybe two.”

“And you?”

“Me? These old bones will complain at me for a few more days.”

Jim snorted his disbelief. “Old bones, huh? How old are you anyway, late twenties?”

“Look it up in my file if you want to know so bad,” McCoy grumbled.

Jim shook his head as far as the immobilizer would allow. “I’m sorry about all of this. I can’t believe I missed that sinkhole.”

“How could you have seen it?” McCoy asked.

“I could have kept the group closer to me and walked the area you were going to be using. Hell, I should have demanded fresh scans of the terrain after that storm.”

“If you’d demanded them, would you have gotten them?”

“Fifty-fifty.” He scrubbed at his hair with his left hand. “Not sure I’ll be up to running your squad’s training next week.”

“I won’t be with them anyway.”

Kirk stared him down. “You’re not quitting, are you?”

“Are you?”

“No.” He sighed. “I’ve got an engineering certification. I’ll be back on a starship even if I never command one.”

“So they pulling you out of command track for this?” McCoy sounded like he was getting worked up.

“I’d guess they will. I haven’t been debriefed. But you should just stay out of it. Don’t ruin your career over my mistake.”

McCoy took a moment to peruse his datapad, probably looking at Jim’s chart, possibly giving himself time to figure out what to say. “I’m sure they’ll tell you that you should have waited for the rescue team to arrive. But we were your responsibility, and it was your call. I can tell you there’s a good chance Hesry wouldn’t be here if you’d waited, and I plan to include that in my report. On the other hand, the next time a doctor tells you to hold up and let him examine you, you do it. If you’d gotten that shoulder immobilized right away you might not have damn near died on the way out of that cave.”

What the hell had happened down there? “What do you mean, died?”

“I mean you tore your brachial artery and damn near bled out internally.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

McCoy pulled up a chair on Jim’s left side and patted his knee over the blanket. “I’m not. Your heart stopped when we put you on the gurney. Anyway, I won’t be here next week because I’m shipping out tomorrow. They can’t wait any longer for doctors out where the fighting is bad. Heck, sounds like they’re short enough of bodies to throw at the Klingons they’ll probably send you out as soon as you’re cleared for duty.”

“I didn’t know it was that bad. You’re the first person who’s talked to me since I woke up.”

McCoy snorted. “Figures. You understand, don’t you, that you died. For let me see,” He flicked the datapad again. “Fifty-two seconds.”

Clearly, the young doctor wasn’t getting the emotional response he expected. Jim had been close enough to death before and seen enough of it second hand to feel those consequences intimately. “I understand, Doctor, I do. You really stepped up, Doctor McCoy. If I ever do get a ship of my own, I’d do well to have you as my CMO.”

“Let’s both just try to live through this year.”

Jim barked a laugh that hit his shoulder just wrong and he winced. “You’re quite the optimist, Doctor Old Bones, aren’t you?”

“I’m as optimistic as the situation warrants, Lieutenant Kirk. But for what it’s worth, you want me on your ship, you’ve got me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The autoclean function on the shower is something I imagine mainly being for places like hospitals, or for decontamination showers.
> 
> 2\. The fall was bad, but it shouldn't have shattered Jim's shoulder so thoroughly. McCoy's going to wonder about that for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> This work is canonical in TOS Prairieverses
> 
> I'll be back with more post-Wt1951 Academy stories when this little flashback is done.


End file.
